EU map of incidence
Map above compares annual incidences in European countries in 2018
The number of cases per 100,000 population is a standard way of measuring incidence. It allows comparison between different populations.
This page attempts to allow comparisons between countries by showing official figures for the last available year.
It is important to understand that the methods of collecting numbers of cases and their means of diagnosis vary enormously between countries and often also regions within countries.
The purpose of this page is to demonstrate the differences and the difficulty of using such figures to describe the true incidence of whooping cough.
These charts and others can be seen here
Countries are likely to count cases in at least two different ways. First is the old fashioned way of a doctor or nurse diagnosing the disease and being legally obliged to inform the relevant authority who then forwards the information to a national centre that keeps count.
Alongside this or in addition, countries may count laboratory confirmations of pertussis infection. Many countries regard the latter as the preferable data.
Some countries do not collect national statistics, only regional ones, each of which may record data differently.
Some countries have only recently started collecting data.
There is no requirement to notify in France. Instead there is a network of paediatricians and bacteriologists in hospitals who monitor the disease and report to the Pasteur Institute.
Doctors in different countries have quite variable attitudes to their statutory obligation to notify.
Some of the data above are taken from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control report in which all European pertussis data for each country can be seen for the latest available year of 2018.
Updated and reviewed on 11 March 2024